Photo by Lane Smith on Unsplash

NAS with Btrfs-based Rockstor

Rock On!

Article from ADMIN 43/2018

By Tim Sch¸rmann

Set up network-attached storage and manage it from a web interface with Rockstor, the easy-to-install and free Linux distribution that uses the still new Btrfs filesystem.

Even small companies keep data on a central network storage device. All you need to build a network-attached storage (NAS) solution yourself is a server and the free Rockstor [1] operating system, which is tailored for NAS operation and can be installed on the server with just a few mouse clicks. Afterward, you can manage the NAS conveniently in your browser. Clients and users access the network storage via NFS, SMB/CIFS, SFTP, and AFP.

Additional functions can be loaded with optional software packages. Using what are known as Rock-ons, you can easily add ownCloud, thus extending your NAS to provide a private cloud. Rockstor currently only runs on 64-bit processors with x86 architecture or in a virtual machine. Prefabricated NAS servers with an ARM brain therefore cannot be retrofitted with Rockstor.

Based on Btrfs

Rockstor is based on the CentOS 7 Linux distribution with a more recent kernel version provided by the ElRepo project. Thus, compared with CentOS, Rockstor supports some additional hardware components. The individual Rock-ons run in Docker containers, but thanks to the Rockstor web interface, you don't need to be familiar with Linux or Docker.

Most NAS operating systems (e.g., FreeNAS) rely on the ZFS filesystem, but Rockstor uses Btrfs, a filesystem that is replacing the ext4 filesystem in the Linux world and offers a range of functions similar to ZFS but is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Rockstor harnesses the capabilities of Btrfs for its own purposes. If so desired, the NAS automatically compresses all data in the background. Thanks to flexible volume management, retrofitted hard disks can be integrated quickly.

Moreover, you can expand or reduce the available storage space for each directory on the fly. Snapshots freeze the current data when needed or at specified intervals.

...

Use Express-Checkout link below to read the full article (PDF).